Germany has become the second most popular immigration destination after the US, overtaking Canada and Australia. New figures by Germany’s statistics reveal a spike by 13 percent over 2013 alone.

The latest provisional figures from the Federal Statistical
Office (Destatis) show the number of people moving to Germany
jumping to 1,226,000. Over the same period, 789,000 people left
the country.

The majority of those figures were non-German immigrants coming
from European Union countries (727,000), with Poland as the top
country of origin (189,000), Deutsche Welle reported.

The OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development)
provided the information on Germany becoming the second most
popular country for immigrants, which represents “a boom -
without any exaggeration,” Thomas Liebig, an expert on
international migration in the organization, told Reuters.

“No other OECD country experienced such a rise,” he
added.

Germany reached the second place in the 2012 already, according
to the latest data. Three years earlier, it occupied the eighth
place.

Annually, the number of migrants soared by 400,000 people, or 38
percent in 2012. Migrants from other European countries were the
majority of the wave.

Most came from Eastern Europe, but increasing numbers were
leaving the crisis-hit southern Europe (Spain, Portugal, Greece)
for strong economy and stable labor market.

According to the OECD, more immigrants were now finding work and
have better vocational skills overall.

However, on Wednesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned
that EU immigrants who came to Germany to look for work would not
receive Hartz IV social welfare payments.

The EU was "not a social-welfare union," Merkel told the
local daily Passauer Neue Presse.

"We do not want to pay Hartz IV to EU citizens who are
residing in Germany solely for the purpose of looking for
work," she added.